[curun1r]

This is missing a few things from the trainings I’ve had on giving feedback, though it has a lot of the good stuff.

For one, it mentions to give positive feedback, but it fails to mention that you should not give that positive feedback at the same time that you’re giving constructive feedback. This gets called the “feedback sandwich” where, to ease the awkwardness of giving constructive feedback, we tend to sandwich it between complimentary feedback. The problem is that people often focus on the stuff that feels good and fail to really hear the constructive part.

Secondly, while it mentions to include the impact, it doesn’t mention the first two parts of good feedback. The model I learned goes by the initialism SBI, for situation, behavior and impact. In X situation, you did Y and it caused Z. You don’t have to format it exactly this way, but having all three components of the feedback is key to making the feedback actionable.

The other thing that’s necessary for great feedback culture is to really understand the concept that “feedback is a gift.” It’s really easy to be defensive or disagree with feedback you hear. But you need to understand that feedback doesn’t represent objective truth, it represents a perspective that you didn’t have before hearing it. As such, it is always a positive to hear, even when it’s critical. You may not agree with the perspective you’re hearing, but simply knowing that the other person feels that way is more information than you had prior to getting the feedback. And having more information is almost always better.

[xxr]

This is really helpful advice—thanks for sharing it.